Projects 2008

Antigone Institute (Santa Catarina State)

Production of informational material on women’s rights and how to proceed and file complaints in cases of violations. The project publishes texts on the Internet, plus an illustrated print booklet to be distributed in Florianópolis, capital of Santa Catarina.

Black Observatory (Pernambuco State)

Training and awareness-raising for 30 psychologists working in the public system in the areas of education, health, public security, and social assistance in the city of Recife and Greater Metropolitan Area, to counteract the impact of racism on the psychological conditions of blacks, in addition to publishing a manual on the issue.

Brazilian Association for Social Welfare, Social Inclusion, Culture, and Environment – Estimate (Rio de Janeiro State)

Production of the audiovisual series Cinemina Re-Vision, with four five-minute videos on institutional racism. The material is publicized at events and has already received more than 800 hits on Youtube.

Ceará Human Rights Forum (Ceará State)

Consolidation of a publication containing a critical analysis of speeches and approaches to violence and human rights in four TV programs in Ceará, seeking to hold accountable those that use the communications media to incite, tolerate, or condone human rights violations, especially against the black population and youth.

Preparatory workshops for participation of refugees in the 2nd National Conference for the Promotion of Policies for Racial Equality, held in 2009, to attempt to guarantee the integration of individuals into social inclusion policies and programs.

Mobilizes black youth throughout the State of Espírito Santo through a campaign against the extermination of young blacks, and establishes a dialogue with society and government officials to deal with the issue. Includes workshops, manuals, videos, and a website for the campaign.

Aims to decrease the rates of domestic violence against women, with black women and other women of color as the main target public, based on training and political empowerment of 105 community leaders in three neighborhoods with extremely high rates of violence in the State capital of Fortaleza.

Workshops for young members of quilombola communities (maroon communities, or descendants of slaves) in the industrial chain for facho, or charcoal produced by burning scraps left over from eucalyptus production, training them to deal with court cases filed by land occupants that refuse to acknowledge their communities’ ancestral land rights.

Living Work Institute (Maranhão State)

Creation of an information clearinghouse for receiving and processing complaints and monitoring action to fight slave labor in the countryside of Maranhão. The blog was used to publicize information on the issue.

Maria Mulher – Black Women’s Organization (Rio Grande do Sul State)

Course with members of community councils advocating for children’s and adolescents’ rights in Porto Alegre to train them for interventions based on a race and gender equality perspective in situations involving violations of young people’s rights.

Mariana Criola People’s Legal Aid Center (Rio de Janeiro State)

Awareness-raising workshops on the rights of informal workers, with the participation of 31 residents from the urban land occupations Quilombo das Guerreiras and Chiquinha Gonzaga in the city of Rio de Janeiro. During the project there was a decrease in the number of arrests.

Network of Communities and Movements against Violence (Rio de Janeiro State)

Free legal aid to victims of state violence, especially due to police raids in impoverished communities in Rio de Janeiro, in addition to awareness-raising for victims and their families concerning their rights, through training and exchange activities.

Pastoral Land Commission – CPT/Xinguara (Pará State)

Meetings in Xinguara, Pará State, with rural workers and representatives from INCRA, the National Institute of Colonization and Land Reform, to attempt to guarantee access to land. Monitoring of court cases involving rural workers.

Pombos Women’s Center (Pernambuco State)

Empowerment of the Network for Women’s Human Rights Advocacy in the Zona da Mata, with political training meetings, encouraging the struggle against violations of women’s rights, with the main focus on black women working in the sugar cane fields.

Preservar Institute (Rio Grande do Sul State)

Puxirão Networking of the Faxinal Peoples (Paraná State)

Workshops on ethnic and collective rights for training the Faxinals, a traditional population from the interior of Paraná State that works at subsistence farming and sustainable exploration of natural resources in collectively used areas.

São Paulo Women’s Union (São Paulo State)

Society for the Defense of Sexual Rights in the Amazon – Sodireitos (Pará State)

Monitors cases of missing women, involving suspected cases of human trafficking, establishing international partnerships for searches in other countries. Training courses for law enforcement officers, aimed at qualified action on this issue.

Steve Biko Cultural Institute (Bahia State)

Reproduction of one thousand antiracist manuals. Workshops for young black people focusing on the Inter-American Human Rights System. Advocacy to impact the Bahia State Legislature and raise awareness against the extermination of black youth in four communities in Salvador.

Elaboration of a documented report on the issue of self-demarcation of the Jeju and Areal Indigenous Land, belonging to the Tembé people in Santa Maria, Pará. Workshop and meetings in Belém with representatives of this Indigenous people and public officials, to deal with the issue.

Organization of the association of users of mental health services and their families in Bahia, creating a space for orientation on their rights in order to discuss mental health problems from different perspectives, such as race/ethnicity, exposing the policy of exclusion and providing support for political practices [N.B. “Walking Metamorphosis” is the title of a song by Raul Seixas, the deceased…